


Oh, They Were Roommates

by justkillthetitan



Series: Eruri Week 2019 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Canonical Character Death, Eruri Week, Eruri Week 2019, Hange's POV, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Explicit Death Tho, Roommates, This isn't that good but here you go, a bit of angst, sadish ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 20:35:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20377717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justkillthetitan/pseuds/justkillthetitan
Summary: "Oh," she thought to herself, sadly and unable to think anything else, "they were roommates."It takes years for Hange to figure out that they were roommates.Eruri Week 2019.Day 1: Roommates.





	Oh, They Were Roommates

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first languages, so there might be things that sound weird for you but right for me. Sorry for grammar and orthography mistakes.

Hange's quarters were in the opposite side of everyone else's. It was only a tiny room with tiny windows, and it resembled a closet more than a proper room to sleep in. Well, that was because her room wasn't even supposed to be a room. Or hers.

You see, Hange had begged and pleaded the commander to send her off in the opposite direction of the common squad leader's rooms just so she could be closer to her lab. Erwin had argued, stating that Hange's lab was dangerous enough to anyone in a fifteen meter radius, and having anyone near it while death sleep was even more dangerous.

Nonetheless, later than never, Erwin gave up, and soon Hange was set off pushing a bed in the tiny room next to her lab. She had giving up her room just around the corner from the commander himself. That room was bigger and had a proper source of light, but she didn't mind sacrificing the luxury for science (for humanity, as she had stated to Erwin). At the end, it had been passed down to Grumpy Face Captain Levi Ackerman.

Hange was surprised when Levi so willingly gave up his spotless room, and exchanged it for Hange's mess of a sleeping place. Not that was a huge mess once she moved all her crap out of the room. She had only left an unholy amount of trash, questionable stains in the weirdest places, and a few spills of chemicals here and there. And while Levi had complain about the mess, the man had endured the cleaning.

And so, life went on.

***

(i)

Recalling the events of the past, the first clue must had been a few weeks after Hange had moved from her old room to the small one next to her lab. While she loved her tiny space to sleep, sometimes Hange would forget the fact that she had moved from her previous room. Meaning that she would walk all the way from her lab to the other side of the quarters to get to her old room, completely oblivious to the fact that the room wasn't hers anymore. The squad leader had found herself doing this a total of three times.

The first one had been a day after she moved to her much smaller room, and she had walked to her old room with the intentions of passing out on the bed. Thankfully, she had been able to caught herself from going inside the room at the last moment, remembering that the room was now Levi's. To say the last, she believed Levi would have kicked her all the way to Sina if she had kicked his door open at four in the morning.

The second time Hange had been saved by Mike who for some reason had been walking the hallways late at night. He had caught Hange walking towards the captain's room with a determinate face. Mike had question her about her presence in that side of the quarters. And when Hange had responded with 'my room', Mike had pointed his finger to the opposite side that she was walking to, snapping Hange of her fake belief.

The third time she had not been save by anyone. With minutes before her brain shut down for good, Hange found herself kicking open the door that she believed to be her room. The first clue that it wasn't her room was the fact that the room smell cleaned. Too cleaned. Scarily clean.

The smell of bleach woke her up. Spotless, and too organize to be hers, Hange found herself inside Levi's room, barely visible by the moonlight. The small hairs on her arms spiked, and she froze on frame as if that could make her invisible. Snapping her eyes shut, Hange decided to wait for Levi's famous kick to come and get her. In another occasion she might had start running right away, but her brain wasn't awake enough to think about such obvious course of action.

The kick never arrived, and Hange was left there with her eyes close, shaking slightly, and her hopes down to ground level. Yet after a few minutes of fearful waiting, Hange gather the courage, and the strength, to open her eyes.

She was standing alone in Levi's room late at night. The short and grumpy man was nowhere in sight. Letting out a breath of relief, Hange ran out of the room as fast as she could, closing the door behind her gently as to not wake anyone.

She embraced the wall opposite to Levi's former room, short of breath and relief to have escaped from the beating of her life. She gave herself a few seconds to mentally path herself on the back for such clean escaped before straightening up and smooth down her excessively wrinkled shirt.

As for Levi's absence, it didn't surprised her at all. Hange knew that her friend suffer a severe case of insomnia. She had even bump on him a few times while the shorter was taking a walk around the quarters. He must be somewhere lurking in the shadows.

Or maybe he was sleepwalking which would explain the multiple cleaning supplies scatter around the quarters and the new brand ghost that everyone was talking about.

Too tired to go back to her room, Hange decided to crash in Moblit's room just down the hall. But before she did so, a small crack caught her attention. Rounding the corner that lead to the commander's room, Hange found the image of the ghost of Levi Ackerman bending over to pick up the small oil lamp lying on the ground. The man had changed the familiar Scouting Legion uniform for his sleeping attire. Loose white shirt and black pants. Picking up the oil lamp, Levi straight up. Hange couldn't tell whether he was sleeping or not, making it impossible to prove her previous hypothesis right.

With the oil lamp on hand, Levi proceeded to open the unlocked door that let in to the commander's room and walked inside with no care in the world for his superior's privacy.

At the time this small event wasn't anything out of normal. Everyone paying close attention could notice the close relationship that the captain and the commander had. Close friendship, trust, the comfortable feeling of being around each other. This small yet strong details that shaped their friendship also shaped the way they acted around each other. It was no surprise dumping into Levi dragging the commander to his room at three in the morning just so he could get some hours of sleep and not collapse during their meeting the next day. This time must had been the same, Hange thought. Just a friend forcing his good friend into getting some rest.

And with that in mind, she moved on.

***

(ii)

The second clue took longer to show up. In insight, clue number two must had been there since day one, way before clue one, but Hange's twisted sleeping schedule, that included passing out around five in the morning and coming back alive half past eleven, was at fault.

The night before had been a slow and boring. Hange had, surprisingly, not done much work on her lab. It was sort of a free night playing with various liquid mixes. And for some miracle, she had passed out at a decent hour. Due to this, the woman was awake early the next day.

She got to grab breakfast unlike most of the time when she sneak at some point before twelve to grab whatever food she could found. Because even though Moblit made sure she eat something at some point during her day, it was never enough when she forgot to eat dinner the previous day.

So there she was. Seven in the morning seating on mess hall. She was earlier than most people and she had no other option then to stay seated and wait for someone else to show up.

Not to her surprise, the first person that showed up was the commander himself. Erwin had always been an early owl and even when he became the commander and the stack of papers doubled, he still woke up early. It was both surprising and mystical.

At his side, the much small Levi was walking alongside him. Once again, this was no surprise. While the duties of the commander and the captain were different, it was common to see Erwin and Levi together. Either chatting, or in complete silence. Hange attribute their behavior to their close friendship, even the silent talks that they had when they thought no one was looking at them. The comfortableness of small touches was also a strong symbol of friendship. No one would dare to touch the commander or the captain. One for respect and shyness, and the other for terror and wishes to live.

So Hange called them over to have some company while they waited for the food to be ready. That night Hange had been able to go to sleep early and she was there first thing in the morning, feeling brainless and a bit death. Erwin and Levi had arrived a few minutes after her, and this kept happening until the squad leader fell again into her mess of a sleeping schedule.

While she had noticed that both man always arrived to breakfast together for those days, the new recruits pointed out that this happens in a daily basis. She heard the whispers of suspiciousness, but decided to ignored them. And when Jean had looked upset and terrify that one time Hange send him to get the commander too early in the morning even for the leader of the Scouting Legion, she would brush it off. Girls have the tendency to go together to the restroom. Maybe going together to breakfast was Erwin's and Levi's thing. Besides, their rooms are close to each other. Everything makes sense.

***

(iii)

Clue number three had not really been a clue, and it had come from the new set of fresh meat of soldiers that brought it up to her attention.

Hange was a talkative person by nature, and socializing with the younger recruits was easy for her. Most times she ended spending five hours explaining all the information she has gather about titans for the past years to a very exited recruit.

Although this time she had accidently overhead a very interesting conversation between Eren Jeager's friends.

"It isn't that weird," said the blond short recruit reading a thick book, not bothering looking up to his comrade.

"Two superiors sleeping in the same room is not weird?" asked Jean Kirstein. "No one does that!"

"Maybe you are just wrong," added Braus.

"Because that one time Squad Leader Hange send me to get the commander the one that answered the door _in pajamas_ was Captain Levi? No way I am wrong!"

"Overworking yourself can make you pass out, and I don't think being a commander is something easy," Armin pointed out. "Which would explain the matter at hand."

"If you pass out three times in a row in someone else's room, and yet you look crisp clean when you get out isn't proving my point, then I don't know what will prove it."

"The rumors about them are weird enough without you trying to throw more wood to the fire," Armin said, finally looking up at his friend. "There is a logical explanation about what you saw."

"What is it then?"

"Passing out from overwork," said Armin.

"Early morning visit," said Mikasa, speaking for the first time.

"A secret door connecting their rooms," proposed Connie.

"Sleepover!" added Sasha.

"Or maybe they are roommates," said Hange. And when each recruit turned their heads to look at her, their terrify faces were enough to make her laugh. "Just a hypothesis."

To say the last, no one dared to talk about the subject anymore.

***

(iv)

Clue number four had come thanks to Hange's ability to pick up on small details. And her curiosity.

Jaeger's friend's discussion about Erwin's and Levi's sleeping arrangement, if any, had made the wheels of her brain spin. Soon enough, she started to wonder if her hypothesis was correct, and the commander and his captain had been sharing a room for weeks. Maybe months, or years.

Was it possible for that to happen? Keeping a sleeping arrangement for an extended period of time without anyone finding out? Granted, is not like Hange was knocking at their door every day. Most of her interaction with the two man was done outside of their own personal rooms. She saw Levi in a daily basis training with his squad, and Hange always dropped by Erwin's office every day to check on the man.

It would be hard to detect if both man shared the commander's room. Getting away with it was highly possible. But if Hange was known for something besides a crazy scientist, she was known for being curious. And curiosity will kill her before a titan did.

The plan was not much of a plan. Unlike their new batch of soldiers, their superiors were Hange's friends. And so, she didn't need a complicated plan, or even an excuse, to show up on their rooms. It was odd if she did, but she was odd enough for anyone to question her anymore.

So off she went knocking on Levi's door right before the sun disappeared on the horizon. Not surprise, shorter human opened his door with that too familiar scowl on his face.

"What do you want?" He asked obviously annoyed, but not annoyed enough to kick her out within five minutes.

"Hello there to you too," Hange responded, and made her way inside his room ignoring Levi's loud growl of protest. "I needed to pick up some stuff I left behind."

Levi's frown deepened, now more than ready to kick her out. "Did you enter in my room without my permission?"

"No," she responded walking around the extremely clean and tidy room. "I forgot about this items the day I moved from this room."

"That was four years ago," he said.

"Exactly!" she exclaimed. "It's probably not here anymore. But now that I am inside a surgery room, I did noticed how sad and grey your room looks," Hange commented checking the furniture for any dot of dust. "No trash, tidy bed, no clothes on any surface, and not even a single sentimental item. Do you even sleep in this room?"

"I do, and stop touching my stuff," he responded almost immediately. "I just don't like to sleep on trash like you do, shitty glasses."

"I have this hypothesis that the messier the working space is, the more creative we become," she commented. Hange straight up once she was done with her small investigation in Levi's room, and move towards the exit. "Well, there is nothing here because I moved so long ago. All the toxic chemicals must have expired by now. There shouldn't be any hazardous problem, but tomorrow you can tell me about any unhealthy symptoms you might had experienced this past four years, see ya shorty!"

"Delusional idiot, come here!" Levi murmured as she closed the door behind herself.

The next day Hange made her way to the commander's room. She knocked and waited for her superior to answer the door. This time she got an invitation from the owner to enter, and for the next two hours Hange spend up their time talking about her new hypothesis about the titan's origins while she walked around inspecting the room as the secret detective she was.

Back on her lab, Hange wrote down all her observation. As she had commented, Levi's room was impeccable. Spotless, and way too clean for even a single human to live there. But once again, Levi himself was way too clean for any human, and Hange couldn't tell for sure that her short friend didn't slept in his room. On the other hand, the lack of personal belongings was also odd. If it had been anyone else, Hange would had been creep out, but Levi was a close off person. He wasn't materialistic, and he would give up their earned luxuries as long as he had the basics for survival. Hell, Levi might just spent all his money on black tea and cleaning supplies, which he would had to tuck away on the drawers. Part of her lamented not having been able to inspect the drawers for a sign of any clothes and cleaning supplies that would indicate Levi did live there.

Then there was Erwin's room. A bit incriminating but not enough to prove her hypothesis. Erwin's room was just like it has always look, even before he became the commander and changed rooms. It had a simple layout just like Levi's room, a bed in the right side of the room pushed against the wall, a table on the corner, drawers for his clothes, and piles and piles of books stack everywhere. It was quite messy, and Hange doubt Levi's abilities of sleep in such room. Of course there were the small but obvious touches of the captain's presence there. The two cups of tea seated on the table that looked like Levi's precious teacups, the captain's jacket thrown on a chair, and the comb that Hange highly suspected to be Levi's resting on top of the drawers. They were small details but they were _logical_ details. With the amount of time the commander and his subordinate spent together, Levi could have forgotten his jacket in the commander's room after late hours of work. The two cups of tea didn't implied anything, Erwin was the only person Levi let touch his cups, and many combs looked either the same or alike.

That was her data. She couldn't proved that her two friends shared the same room. And while she could had asked them, it was now useless.

But she was a bit skeptical after her failed investigation, and she wanted to revise the case. But with the arrival of the female titan, Eren getting kidnapped for the uptenth time, and more catastrophic events, her small investigation had been erased from her mind.

***

(v)

Clue number five had been the major evidence of her previous hypothesis, and the one that proved it. It had also been the last one.

A lot of things needed to be taken care of after the battle in Shiganshina. While humanity had wind up as a winner, there was no time for the remaining members of the Scouting Legion to celebrate.

Having lost almost all of their forces, Hange, as the new commander, and everyone else remaining had to take care of multiple reports and the heavy reality of the outside world on their shoulders. Between informing all the superiors about the shocking news of the existence Mare and the remaining world, making plans for their next course of action, and dealing with the multiple families of the fallen, no one had been given the time to properly mourn the lost of their friends.

They haven't been able to bring any of the bodies of their dead comrades, but there was a future expedition to go back to Shiganshina as soon as possible to explore the conditions of the territory beyond the sealed Wall Maria. Everyone also hoped to get Erwin's remains back for a proper funeral.

With no funerals planned for the remaining time, it was time to clean up the quarters. Most of the people that occupied the living spaces of the Scouting Legion had died, and it was their job to get rid of the remaining belonging of the soldiers that no one claimed.

It was sad to see the pile of boxes with the last traces of their comrade's lifes. Their long faces might never go away. The last two rooms to clean and clear out were Erwin's office and his room. Hange and Levi had decided to take this task themselves and send anyone off who dared to even bother them. Erwin's office was easier to clean out. While there were small traces of his presence in it, the huge amount of military related items made it a bit more bearable. They could pretend that there was a detachment between the commander and their friend.

However, Erwin's room was harder. Funny since the commander didn't spent as much time inside his room as he did in his office. But even then, Erwin's room had imprinted the small signs of his humanity. The pile of books were not only the kind you dread to read. There was a variety of creative literature, poems, small stories. Things that anyone would read for fun and not for responsibility and an objective too far away to catch. There were also forbidden books, and Hange might be delusional now, but she thought she saw small tears on Levi's eyes.

Hange took one of the boxes, and sorrowful made her way to the pile of books to pack them up. A small hand grabbed her wrist, and Hange turned her head around to be met with the sight of an even sadder looking Levi.

"Don't," he said, and Hange was getting ready to push some sense in Levi. As much as it hurt, they needed to finish the task. But before she could answer, Levi continued. "I'll clean our room."

And it hit her, harder than she thought it would.

_Our_, the way Levi said. While he stilled preserved that monotone, almost boring tone of his, the way he had said _our_ was so different. Tender, gentler in a manner only Levi could muster without letting it out like that. And so sad it almost made her cry again.

Her new discovery felt like a painful punch on the face for various reasons. Nonetheless, she waited quietly by the door has her comrade packed up the last few items of their old commander. She could give him that small moment of closure that he had gave her when Hange had cleaned Moblit's room.

It was extremely sad to see all the books and the small amount of personal belongings that were once owned by her now death friend being condensed and packed away, yet it was surprising to see the variety of Levi's own belongings being packed in separate boxes. Cravats, shirts too small for the commander, cleaning supplies. Levi had moved almost all his belongings inside this room, she guessed, neatly organized besides Erwin's own. It made sense how bare and empty his room felt. He must have only be in there to clean it and leave the small traces of a living organism living in there.

When Levi had finished packing all of Erwin's belongings and his own, both soldier's proceeded to move the boxes to Levi's oficial room. Since Erwin didn't had a family that they knew about, both unable to tell whether his mother was still alive or not, all of his things will stay inside Levi's room for the time being. He would later decide what to do with them.

Levi picked up the last box of heavy books, leaving Hange standing by the door once again. As he walked out of the room, he paused by her side. "It's done," he said. "Empty and bare, as if we were never here." With those last words, Levi left the room. Hange's eyes glued to his back until he round the corner and she lost sight of him, leaving her alone facing a bare and empty room.

She wasn't so sure about how Levi felt. She herself had lost multiple close friends in the last battle. She knew the feeling of mourning too well. It was too familiar that sometimes felt odd to not have it present one way or another. There were different ways to mourn, and everyone mourn people at different levels. Some mourned one individual more than the rest.

She took a last look at the room that she could tell will be closed for a long time until the Scouting Legion found more people to fill the empty rooms that echo with the few footsteps of the only nine individuals that had survived the previous massacre.

For now this room will start accumulating dust all over the surfaces. As if no one had lived there before. Her mystery was solved, and after her small investigation, she had been granted her answer.

_"Oh,"_ she thought to herself, sadly and unable to think anything else,_ "they were roommates."_

And she closed the door.


End file.
